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BKWLD Finds Inspiration in Social for Drexel University

“Inside all of us is a wild thing.” So reads one of the inspirational quotes in a series of 16 shareable cinemagraph-style digital videos that BKWLD developed for Drexel University and Misfit. Handling storyboards, design, concept, strategy, art direction, writing, web development, and more for the immersive HTML5 experience, BKWLD created a sensory tour de force that presents the uplifting life stories of Drexel alumni using video, sound design, hardware-accelerated animation, and a subtle understanding of the language of social media.

“We wanted to reach out to the people who felt like underdogs, to inspire them with the confidence and courage to get up and get going and do something positive for themselves while also drawing on the feel of social media gifs and images to make the videos as sharable as possible,” explained BKWLD CD Jeff Toll. With a roster of developers, a legacy of digital and online design, and video and live-action expertise, this is the sort of brand-building, digitally centric, concept-to-completion project that BKWLD specializes in.

Misfit and Drexel – drawn by BKWLD’s extraordinary recent Sip It Up Facebook Connect app for Partnership at Drugfree.org, which helped build awareness about cough syrup abuse among teens – approached BKWLD seeking a campaign that would inspire and recruit new students. With the goal of breaking from the standard interview-style docu-video, BKWLD envisioned something far more shareable and dynamic, with integrations throughout the social media universe and a special activation on Pinterest.

“It had to blend in with the language and media that are being shared currently online. This is where the ‘gif’ inspired video and quotes fit perfectly, since both of these show up in the social space constantly. In fact, inspirational quotes are one of the most sharable elements on Pinterest,” noted Director and Animator Chad Turner. “But what’s unique about this project is that there’s an added experience attached to the quotes. After a user clicks the image, they are directed to a unique URL where the full sensory experience begins.”

One of the studio’s primary goals was to make the experience accessible to both desktop and tablet displays, a tricky endeavor that required the use of modern development techniques leveraging open source JavaScript and HTML5, including a responsive fallback to older browsers and search engines. “The most important thing with this type of highly experiential site, is that we deliver a seamless experience to the user, regardless of our technical limitations in the web browser,” stated BKWLD Development Director Dan Rogers.